'Depressed' HIV positive man commits suicide

Jul 03, 2014

A man in a remote village in central Uganda has hanged himself after reportedly enduring a period of depression ever since finding out he is HIV positive.

By Davis Buyondo

RAKAI - A man in a remote village in central Uganda has hanged himself after reportedly enduring a period of depression ever since finding out he is HIV positive.

The residents of Lusolo village in Rakai district said Willy Sande, 40, was a “depressed” and “reserved” man, and reasoned that he had lost hope for life, eventually leading him to end his own life.

They found him dangling from a noose, lifeless, inside his house on Wednesday.

It is not exactly clear why he decided to commit suicide, although his village mates point to his HIV status as the most probable reason behind the act.

It is understood Sande had neither a wife nor children and that he was alone in the house at the time of his death.

Jude Lukwago, an area resident, said that ever since Sande tested HIV positive last year, he had been very reserved and depressed.

Some Good Samaritans in Lusolo community, he said, opened a pork joint for Sande last year to help him raise money and take care of himself.

The fateful day

Meanwhile, the dead man’s immediate neighbor revealed that Sande had told him about the difficulty he faced with the anti-retroviral drugs.

He said Sande suddenly fell ill on Tuesday but he did not have enough money to take him to Rakai hospital for treatment.

So he stayed home and did not talk to anyone until later that evening (at around 8pm local time) when he wished everyone a good night and locked himself in his house, until the following morning when he was found dead by curious residents.

Christine Apini, the officer in charge of Lwanda police post, confirmed the death.

A postmortem was done at the scene and the body handed over to the deceased’s family for burial.

High incidence

Incidents of HIV patients committing suicide have become common in Rakai district.

In June last year, a man in Kyotera town identified as Sebastian Nakatanza reportedly doused his bedsheets with petrol, wrapped them all over his body and lit himself while lying on a mattress.

Nakatanza was reportedly an HIV patient who had lost hope and therefore opted to end his life as an alternative to end his misery.

Residents failed to save him as he had locked himself in the house.

Following the incident, his son revealed that he had decided to stay with and take care of his father after the deceased developed some sort of mental disorder.

He had refused to eat anything days before burning himself to death.

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